Intel HD Graphics 4000 Over GTX 660M

[Milezero]

Greetings everyone!

I'm a new Alienware owner and I've just recently received my Alienware M17x R4 from dell a few weeks back.

As I have a friends who has exactly the same specs as my Alienware except that he uses an ASUS ROG, they are able to run games at a WAY better resolution, framerate and quality than me.(Despite the exact same specs. Neither overclocked.)

So I decided to search for the issue on the net and I came upon a thread which instructed me to:
1) Switch my graphics card (fn+f7)
2) Reboot
3) Reinstall the Nvidia GTX 660M graphics card.
4. Reboot again

Upon administering said instructions, I was able to run my games on par with my friends' ASUS ROG. (Although the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 was nowhere to be found on my Device Manager List.)

And so I wondered... is this an issue wherein the Intel HD Graphics 4000 actually takes priority over the Nvidia GTX 660M by default? Is there a fix to this wherein I could actually still be able to use the Intel HD Graphics 4000 but have the Nvidia GTX 660M as the priority graphics card?

(NOTE: Whenever I boot up my system, this error message shows up "Display Driver Stopped Responding and Has Recovered.")

 

[AeonSoul]

NVIDIA has an integrated Optimus system. That means that the dedicated GPU gets used only when required. To "force" it to use the NVIDIA GPU while playing games (sice I don't know why, but it's somewhat buggy), just go into NVIDIA Control Panel and in the 3d Setting section select the application you want and for that given application choose to use the dedicated GPU. If you can't find the application you want in the list you can add it by simply selecting the executable file in the browsing window.